Undercover Badge; Next Generation

Chapter nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

When I woke up the next morning, Matthew was parked outside, sitting on the hood of his car, eating a burrito. I watched him from my bedroom window, surprised to catch him in such a human act. Eating a burrito on his car's hood like every other guy his age. I turned around to get dressed.

My phone fully charged, I noticed a huge influx of messages from Ingrid, all promising my death with various degrees of swiftness as the days had passed, and all ringing with the question; "Why was Matthew Cavalier talking to you?"

I threw on a fitted white t shirt and jeans with a pair of leather ankle boots that matched my bag with a small, chunky, cowgirl heel. My mother hated them; she said that you either had flat boots or high heeled boots, but not half heel boots. I loved them, though. I donned a scarlet wool cardigan that trailed to my knees at two points in front and two at the back, the rest's length just under my hips. It sported a thick, deep hood that covered my blonde curls. My glasses felt like home when I slipped them onto my face, in spite if the fact that i felt a little like I needed a basket and would be heding through the woods to grandma's house.

I grabbed my obligatory apple, thankful for some sense of normalcy.

But I wasn't normal. I'd died and come back, and I guessed I was still in shock. I mean, how do you process something like that? Process that you died twice and came back? I supposed it was unfathomable to me, and with that it was impossible to accept.

Tommy had been through the kitchen, and I noticed that the primary supplement of his diet was sugar based. The box of Donutohs lay on its side, empty, and i had my suspicions that we'd bought it only two days ago.

The glorified diabetes coated heart attack of a breakfast food could only be found in Bluegrove. Aunt Gundersen of Gundersen bakeries (a franchise that boasted two stores, one in Silver Valley and its flagship in Bluegrove) had come up with the recipe herself while her husband had been away in the second word war, and her passion for food would later lead to the start of a blossoming company. Their most prised product consisted of tiny donuts just big enough to fit my pinky finger at its tip. The little morsels were baked with a glaze of brown sugar and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar after being fried just enough to be crunchy. In spite of the fact that Aunt Gundersen had no nephews or neices to speak of, the name stuck. Tommy had wiped out the entire box. It made me smile endearingly.

After locating a single remaining Donutoh and having been unable to resist crunching on it, I walked to the door and opened it, taking a step out and nearly slamming into Matthew who had his hand raised like he was about to knock.

"Hi." the word came out surprised and high pitched.

"Hey." he smirked, and looked me up and down for a second, and the smirk turned into a quirk of his mouth and a softening of his features that looked for a second - though I must have been wrong - like a tender smile. "This suits you. Cute. Listen, I was thinking. Now that you don't think I'm trying to kill you anymore, can I give you a ride to school?"

I stared at him. He wanted to protect me, considering the last time I'd been driving on my own from school, I'd been kidnapped. Clearly I was in danger when I was alone. I'd been doing kickboxing for years but that didn't make me a real threat. I practiced on boxing bags and people holding padded shields, that didn't mean could attack a real, like, person. Was I even strong enough to cause damage to a real person? Were my kicks and hits even substantial enough to cause a bruise?

I mulled this over as I stared at him.

Of course, the way his grey shirt had a T-rex cartoon on it and how his leather jacket looked on his shoulders influenced the decision. The way his dark hair sort of spiked up and looked like designer bed head. The way his hands were in the pockets of his faded and frayed jeans and the steel toed boots most definitely weighed in his favor.
So, in a voice I hoped was casual but in reality sounded like I was being choked, I said "Ok, fine." and turned around, locking the door.